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Trump Reverses Tack on Russian Election Meddling

Under fire, president says he accepts U.S. intelligence findings on interference

President Donald Trump reversed course Tuesday on comments he made a day before during a news conference with Vladimir Putin, saying he had full faith in the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia attempted to interfere with the 2016 election. Photo: LEAH MILLIS/REUTERS

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump said he has “full faith” in U.S. intelligence services and accepts that Russia meddled in the 2016 elections, reversing course from his remarks alongside Vladimir Putin Monday after a barrage of criticism that he failed to stand up to the Russian president.

Mr. Trump’s revision, given in remarks at the White House Tuesday, came after U.S. officials and some of the president’s closest allies voiced concern that the Helsinki summit—and several contentious days in Europe that preceded it—had put the administration on the defensive, created conflicts with fellow Republicans and illustrated the perils of the president’s off-the-cuff style.

Mr. Trump expressed surprise at the backlash and said after reviewing the transcripts of the news conference he realized that he had misspoken during “a key sentence in my remarks.”

Asked at Monday’s summit whom he believed—U.S. intelligence agencies or Mr. Putin—Mr. Trump said Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, “came to me [and] said, they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia.”

He then said, “I will say this, I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

Mr. Trump said on Tuesday that he had meant to say, “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia,” adding that the mistake “should have been obvious.”

Even as he said he accepted U.S. officials’ finding that Russia interfered in the election, Mr. Trump repeated his assertion that there was no collusion with his campaign and said there “could be others too.” U.S. intelligence agencies haven’t implicated other foreign countries in the 2016 election meddling.

Mr. Trump didn’t address other remarks he made in the Helsinki press conference, including calling the special counsel probe of Russian election interference a “disaster for our country” and declaring his “confidence in both parties,” referring to U.S. intelligence agencies and Mr. Putin. He also said “both countries had made some mistakes,” whereas U.S. officials had urged him to take a tough line on issues such as Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Moscow’s alleged role in the poisoning of a former spy in the U.K.

One White House official said the president had “kind of winged it” at the Helsinki news conference, veering from his preparations.

As aides talked privately after his return about how to address the burgeoning crisis, Mr. Trump—who on the Air Force One flight back to Washington asked advisers how his appearance had come off—watched the news coverage and realized he couldn’t stay silent, said one person briefed on the events.

President Trump’s cordial meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin was in sharp contrast to his more combative meetings with NATO allies last week. Photo: Reuters

On Tuesday morning, after the president had seen the news coverage and looked at a transcript of his Helsinki remarks, he called a meeting at the White House to discuss how to respond. In attendance were Vice President Mike Pence, National Security Adviser John Bolton, new deputy chief of staff for communications Bill Shine and others, a person familiar with the matter said.

At that meeting, Mr. Trump agreed he would make a public statement in the afternoon saying he had misspoken and staff started drafting talking points.

Senate Republicans also urged administration officials to push the president to change his stance, one Senate Republican said, even as he stood by it in a tweet earlier Tuesday calling criticism of his Helsinki appearance “fake news.”

Several lawmakers said Tuesday they were relieved to hear Mr. Trump clarify his comments.

“I hope that what he really thinks is what he said today and that is that he agrees with his intelligence community when it comes to the issue of Russia meddling,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, a member of the chamber’s Republican leadership.

Mr. Trump spoke Tuesday “because enough of us had communicated that it was unacceptable,” said Newt Gingrich, a Trump ally and former House speaker. “As you know, this is not a guy who backtracks very often. He looked at it and said we were right. He needed to clarify it.”

Still, White House officials said they worried about further political fallout from the summit. Mr. Trump was also more broadly criticized for not publicly stating his objections to other Russian actions that have prompted concern in the U.S. and caused Congress to apply sanctions.

Sign in to listen to The Wall Street Journal’s Gerald F. Seib and Ann Simmons offer insight into what President Trump’s meeting with President Putin means for relations between the U.S. and Russia.

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“This one could put a crack in the foundation,” said one longtime Trump ally.

It was unclear what, if any, action lawmakers might pursue as a result but some took pains to reinforce the message that Russia is a U.S. adversary—and to reassure European allies that the U.S. was on their side, not Moscow’s.

“I would say to our friends in Europe, we understand the Russian threat and I think that is the widespread view here in the United States Senate among members of both parties,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Ky.) said shortly before Mr. Trump was scheduled to speak.

White House officials said they were caught flat-footed by the strength of the reaction to Mr. Trump’s Helsinki appearance, leaving them without a response for about a day, the capstone of a week when Mr. Trump’s remarks have caused controversy with allies and challenged aides.

At the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Belgium last week, for instance, during an emergency session called to discuss Mr. Trump’s demands that NATO member increase their military spending, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told the president parliamentary procedures would require additional time.

Mr. Trump responded that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey didn’t have the same problem, according to two people familiar with the exchange.

Mr. Erdogan has expanded his presidential powers, clamped down on judicial independence and pursued a nationalist agenda in Turkey, putting his country at odds with its U.S. and NATO allies.

“Nobody knew how to react to this,” one official said. “This is more of a Soviet style. This is not how we do business in the West.”

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A White House official said the president’s comment was a joke and that people in the room laughed in response.

The president’s news conference after the NATO meeting was held with so little notice that dozens of reporters on the trip had already traveled to London, where Mr. Trump was to meet British Prime Minister Theresa May the following day.

While Mr. Trump said at the start of the trip that he wanted to improve relations with Mrs. May, he repeatedly criticized her in an interview that was published on the evening the prime minister hosted a dinner for the president.

A close Trump ally criticized the president’s messaging on that leg of the trip as “incoherent” and said, when Mr. Trump apologized to Mrs. May the next day, that he “looked weak.”

Before the Helsinki news conference, aides had expected Mr. Trump, while standing beside Mr. Putin, to forcefully make the point that he wouldn’t tolerate meddling in U.S. elections.

When that didn’t happen, White House aides “realized that a corrective statement needed to take place,” according to a person close to the White House.

The president said Tuesday his administration had no plans to lift sanctions on Russia and would work hard to thwart further Russian attempts to meddle in U.S. elections. “We will stop it, we will repel it,” he said. “We’re doing everything in our power to prevent Russian interference in 2018.” Administration and state officials have said the White House has been almost entirely absent from efforts to deter further Kremlin-backed election meddling.

Meanwhile, the administration released scant details of what the two presidents discussed in about four hours of meetings, first one-on-one and then with staffers. It said those issues included the future of Syria and the effort to replace the New Start arms-control treaty, which expires in 2021.

“The Helsinki summit was the beginning of a process between the United States and Russia to reduce tensions and advance areas of cooperation in our mutual interest,” a National Security Council spokesman said in a statement. “ We are reviewing the discussion between President Trump and President Putin, considering possible next steps, and have nothing further to announce at this time.”